Visual research workshop and discussion with Nina Sabnani - Proposal 2

After attending the visual research workshop I had a clearer idea on what is a research project exactly and the process of carrying it out. Also how important it will be for my degree project.

We were introduced to our mentors for the first time on the last day of the workshop before our individual discussion session with Nina Sabnani. I discussed both my proposals with Shilpi mam and realized the 2nd proposal had great potential for research and could be studied in the Indian context as well. Also it was something that hasn't been approached by many people as a subject of study.

*this is not the final proposal - 


proposal 2:

Name: ARUSHI SHARMA

What is the theme or topic area that you are hoping to investigate in your research project?

Examining the use of fashion in fiction by various Medias.

Can you identify two or more questions that the research will help you go some way towards answering?

- What are the forms of media that have explores fashion.

- What are the different fashion settings explored?

- How have the stories been formed to blend with the fashion setting.

- How has fashion been manipulated to form a story.

- What is the general target audience?

- What psychological impact does it have on the audience?

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What sort of approaches will you employ to collect data for your research enquiry? For example, if you were going to interview students – how many would you interview? What sorts of themes would you be questioning them about?

Interview fashion students/ professionals working in fashion/ general people who read chick lets or girl oriented novels.

case studies

Observation

Analysis

Signs and symbols

What is the purpose of your research? Why is it useful?

Being passionate about fashion magazines and having completed an internship program with Vogue, I think the research will help me in understanding the fashion scenario as a whole. It will help me develop a deep understanding of how fashion fiction is formed and interpreted by the audience. I will get an opportunity to know what kind of explorations have been done in various forms of media till date and thus help me develop something new in the field of fashion communication using fashion fiction.

After discussing both my proposals with Nina mam and taking her feedback and comments on both decided to take the 2nd proposal forward.

Initial thoughts and first proposal

The Topic :

It wasn't very hard for me to initially decide the topic as i was always interested in Fashion and was sure that ill do something with fashion for my degree project. The problem was what in fashion.

we were given two approaches that we could fallow 1st to decide the degree project and base the research on it 2nd to research on something and base the degree project on it. I decided to try both the approaches and narrowed down to two main proposals :

Proposal 1:

Name: ARUSHI SHARMA

What is the theme or topic area that you are hoping to investigate in your research project?

Examining the evolution of the look and feel of the Vogue cover and how the magazine has been manipulated to appeal to the Indian audience.

Can you identify two or more questions that the research will help you go some way towards answering?

- How have the various art movements influenced the Vogue cover?

- What was the general trend of design change over the years?

- Can I deconstruct the different elements of the Vogue cover in order to do an analysis?

- What is the mindset of the general people who read Vogue?

- What is distinct about Vogue India in respect to content, cover, look and feel when compared to international Vogue issues.

- What do the Indian Vogue readers look for in the magazine?

What sort of approaches will you employ to collect data for your research enquiry? For example, if you were going to interview students – how many would you interview? What sorts of themes would you be questioning them about?

Interview fashion students/ professionals working in Vogue/ Vogue readers

case studies

Interview faculty

Observation

What is the purpose of your research? Why is it useful?

Being passionate about fashion magazines and having completed an internship program with Vogue, I think the research will help me in understanding of the Vogue design strategy. It will also, in general help analyzing what goes behind designing a cover of a fashion magazine and how it has been reviewed over the years.To any communication design student, it will bring forward a design process and a process of evolution in design which in general will help a designer’s understanding of a cover layout and inculcate a creative thought process in print media.

This proposal was not taken forward as studying the cover alone could be a good research project but its use in my degree project was very limited. Also I realised during my pre-research that the Indian Vogue cover was exactly same as the International and no change as such had occurred in the layout of the cover. This project would have worked perfectly if I was studying the the look and feel of the whole magazine and its content but unfortunately the time did not permit that.

I also realized that vogue covers was a very interesting topic but it did not excite me as much as the second proposal. also the second proposal was very close to something  I wanted to do for my degree project.